Mid Pacific's Nicole Lopez heads home to greet her teammates after a first inning home run against Maryknoll. Sylvia Lee | SL

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Mid-Pacific improved to 7-4 in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu's Division I as they scored early and then held off Maryknoll, 2-1, at Sand Island Park.

In the first inning, Mid-Pacific's Taylor Ann Oda hit a single grounder past the shortstop to get on base, setting the table for Nicole Lopez, who blasted a homerun over the right-field fence to give the Owls an early 2-0 lead, one that would turn out to be the difference in the game.

"Going up to bat, I knew Shearyna (Labasan) is a good pitcher so I wanted to make contact with the ball. I knew if I got my hands there in the right position then I would hit it well," said Mid-Pacific catcher Nicole Lopez.

"The first two runs in the first inning were big for us," said Mid-Pacific coach Alan Inaba.

In the fifth inning, Maryknoll's starting pitcher and leadoff hitter Shearyna Labasan hit a double into center outfield. A few batters later Bree Soma hit another double past second base, scoring Labasan and bringing the Lady Spartans to within 1 run.

But in what was a defensive struggle for most of the game, and the Owls prevailed down the stretch.

"Basically is what our team is about: pitching and defense. Our pitcher (Kayla) is a senior and she has been waiting three years for Keiki (Carlos) to graduate. Now she has her shot and she works hard and makes the most of it. She's not going to strike out a lot of players, so we rely on our defense to make plays," said Inaba.

That philosophy showed in the seventh inning, as the Mid-Pacific defense refused to let Maryknoll make a comeback. Mid-Pacific first baseman Kristi Nagamine caught Erica Inagaki's pop fly. On the next at-bat, pitcher Kayla Au struck out Miki Takara. Lopez then caught Tamia Hirano's pop fly to seal the victory for the Owls.

"I tried to throw strikes and hit most of my spots. I depend on my defense a lot and I trust them and they made the plays today," said winning pitcher Kayla Au.

As Kayla's catcher, Lopez said, "We looked at previous games and looked at what Maryknoll girls could hit and couldn't hit and I based it off of that. Our defense was really solid today and it was a good team win."

Mid-Pacific plays Saint Francis on Friday 4/12 at 4 pm while Maryknoll travels to first-place Kamehameha on Wednesday 4/10 at 4 pm.